FSBO: 1830s Huguenot House in New Paltz 360K

A READER alerted me to this very vintage cedar-sided cottage on 9+ acres, five miles from the town of New Paltz in Ulster County, N.Y. It’s on the market with an asking price of 360K.

Built for tenant farmers in the 1830s, the original deed has the names of early Huguenot settlers on it (the Huguenots were French Calvinists, many of whom settled in the New Paltz area in the 17th and 18th centuries).

The house has 2BR, 2 baths, hand-hewn beams, wide-board floors, and a barn with an upstairs studio. There’s a beehive oven in the basement, as well as an ice house.

According to legend, slaves were smuggled along the creek at the base of the property during the Civil War, and in the 1920s, locals say, the place was used as a brothel.

Sounds worthy of an archaeological dig.

The current owner is Diana Salsberg, a onetime puppet builder for Jim Henson, who purchased the house in 1991 and lived there full-time for 14 years.